Jimmy Page & Steve Winwood - Who's to Blame Arms Concert 83

JIMMY PAGE & STEVE WINWOOD - WHO'S TO BLAME ARMS CONCERT 83

The ARMS Charity Concert (or concerts) was a rock concert given at the Royal Albert Hall in September 1983 in support of Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis. The idea for hosting the concert was envisaged by Ronnie Lane, ex-bassist for The Small Faces and The Faces, himself a casualty of multiple sclerosis. The concert featured a star-studded line-up of well known British musicians, including Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, Andy Fairweather-Low, Bill Wyman, Kenney Jones and Charlie Watts. The concert was particularly notable in the fact that it was the first occasion on which Clapton, Beck and Page, each a former lead guitarist for The Yardbirds, had performed together on stage.

As Jeff Beck was finishing his set, a camera caught Jimmy Page as he was preparing to make his way from the back of the stage. When these initial images of Page appeared on the video screen, the enthusiastic audience cheered. People began surging toward the front of the stage. The local reviewer for the paper, from his vantage point, saw the fan reaction and the surge, but did not see the images of Page on the video screen. The reviewer mistakenly credited the fans' enthusiastic response at the end of Jeff Beck's set to Jeff's performance. It was a good performance. But the facts are the crowd was responding to just the sight of Jimmy Page preparing to come onto the stage.

Jimmy Page's set was made up, firstly, of 3 numbers taken from the Death Wish II music he had put together for director Michael Winner earlier that year. The set ended with "Stairway to Heaven", a popular number that evoked a great cheer from the audience.